Trailers and picture galleries listed... and a 4500 yen price tag. Almost makes you wonder if Toei authored these dvds...

However, the box set comes with bonus disc with interviews (and possibly other content).

Also, Raro Video is listing Hunter in the Dark for February 2009. No specs so far, but there’s a chance english subs will be included. With both Shochiku and HK Video being flawed this could turn out the best release so far.

yesasia. I usually use cdjapan, but currently yesasia is cheaper because they have fixed dollar prices, and now yen has gone up to heaven. Their R2J product prices are currently below the Japanese standard / street prices.

HungFist wrote:yesasia. I usually use cdjapan, but currently yesasia is cheaper because they have fixed dollar prices, and now yen has gone up to heaven. Their R2J product prices are currently below the Japanese standard / street prices.

Thanks! No wonder I haven't found it. I was looking for the English title. But whoa!! €37.79 is quite expensive for ONE film. I know it is cheaper than usual, but still, it isn't worth paying an amount of money for one film, when the same amount can easily get me three other films.

HungFist wrote:yesasia. I usually use cdjapan, but currently yesasia is cheaper because they have fixed dollar prices, and now yen has gone up to heaven. Their R2J product prices are currently below the Japanese standard / street prices.

Thanks! No wonder I haven't found it. I was looking for the English title. But whoa!! €37.79 is quite expensive for ONE film. I know it is cheaper than usual, but still, it isn't worth paying an amount of money for one film, when the same amount can easily get me three other films.

I'm guessing the JP DVDs of LW+C have no English subs? I'm fine with the Thai box TBH (basically the same as the R1's), Shogun Assassin is on R1 Animego as well.
The different fonts on the R1 were useful though, so you could see who was talking.

This hard hitting study on the thin red line between the police and yakuza is one of my favourite Kinji Fukasaku crime films. Unfortunately I'm not entirely pleased with the R1 Kino transfer. I was hoping that Toei might have better image, but then, the Kino transfer actually looks a lot like some of Toei's weaker transfers. So I did a bit of investigation.

Against all odds I found this japanese review of the film, with a few screencaps. I can't quarantee they are from the R2J, but I think it's pretty safe to assume they are. JP cap top, R1 bottom.

yes, that's Reiko Ike

The cap from the japanese site is streched, and to make the comparison easier I have given the R1 cap the same treatement. All the other R1 caps in this post are correct.

It seems like the transfers are pretty similar. They could be the same, actually, as the R2J cap may not be accurate

Next up is the Wild Side Video dvd. This time I'm stealing caps from dvdrama. These caps don't seem very reliable, so lets only use them as rough reference only. FR top, R1 bottom. Not the exact same frame, this shouldn't cause much problems here.

It's a bit hard to say how accurate / inaccurate those caps are, but the cropping looks pretty nasty. Is there anyone who can confirm these Wild Sideo Video caps are correct or even close?

Finally, here's some more R1 caps. The transfer is interlaced and dvd-5 (shows some compression artifacts). If I had to take a guess, I'd say Toei is the same but without compression problems. Wild Side is most likely progressive.

Last edited by HungFist on 11 Jan 2009, 09:56, edited 1 time in total.

In June Toei is releasing more gangster films from the series that stared with Hana to arashi to gyangu (see January 2009 releases). The films to be released are parts 2-5 and 7. I don’t know what happened to part 6. It’s possible they forgot to list it.

The first three films are the first three instalments in the Kanto Street Peddlers Clan series. In case someone doesn’t know, Norifumi Suzuki was a seminal yakuza film worker before he became the king of exploitation in the early 70’s. In the late 60’s he wrote (most Red Peony Gambler films) and directed several yakuza films for Toei. He wasn’t considered the studio’s most remarkable yakuza director, but his input was nevertheless remarkable. As for the five part Kanto Street Peddlers Clan series he directed the first four films. The fifth movie was directed by Takashi Harada.

Mamushi no kyôdai is a long running series with 7 instalments (as far as I know). Several directors (Kosaku Yamashita, Sadao Nakajima, Norifumi Suzuki, Eiichi Kudo, Michio Honda) have contributed to the series, but each film stars Sugawara. The films Toei is releasing are the first three movies in the series.

Here's some posters for Mamushi no kyôdai and Kanto Street Peddlers Clan movies

Interesting notice. The 6th film is Kantô hizakura ikka, Junko Fuji's retirement movie. I didn't know it was considered a part of the series. Could this be one of those cases where it's not so clear whether a film is a part of the series or not (like Sister Street Fighter 4, or Karate Warriors which jmdb considers a Street Fighter film). But I haven't seen any of the Kanto films and I don't know the backgrounds so this is just speculation.

Takao Saito’s Golgo 13 comics aren’t very easy to adapt into live action features due to their international nature, but Toei went all the way with this first attempt. Junya Sato shot the film on location in Iran with mostly foreign cast. The lead role is played by the heavenly cool Ken Takakura, whose combination of charisma, black sunglasses and M16 assault rifle makes him one of the coolest asssassins in film history. Both execution and storywise the film could be better – and it would’ve been a good to opt for local languages istead of having the entire Iran speak Japanese – but with its rare international setting, superb leading man and some exciting action Golgo 13 easily ranks more interesting than Toei’s average action thrillers of the era. Due to the high expenses the studio didn’t allow Golgo 13 to return to the big screen until in 1977 in a slightly inferior Shinichi Chiba film Golgo 13: Kowloon Assignment.

Over the past year or so Cinema Epoch have quietly built themselves into one tasty little boutique label for fans of unusual film, particularly of the Asian variety, and the menu just expanded considerably. The company picked up a fistful of classic titles at the recent Cannes Marche Du Film and will be bringing all of them to DVD in 2009 with brand new anamorphic transfers taken from new prints of the films. What have they got?

BAD GIRL MAKO (Furyo Shojo Mako) (1971)Director: Koreji KuraharaCast: Junko NatsuCult classic from Nikkatsu Studios. Patronized by a gang ruling the city, Mako delinquently plays around a nightclub everynight with her bad company. When her lover Hideo is murdered by the gang, Mako swears vengeance on all of those responsible.

Any word on Bad Girl Mako? I see that Yellow Fangs has been released, but really waiting for this Mako... no mention of it or the other 2 on Cinema Epoch's site.

I haven't heard anything about Mako yet. I'm really looking forward to it. I remember Yellow Fangs hit the stores with almost zero warning... it was out before I even knew it had a release date. Either I completely missed it, or the release date wasn't announced until maybe a few weeks before the release.

Regarding Toei's limited pressing releases (i.e. the recent Etsuko Shihomi set), is it common for all these to have virtually no extras and no Japanese subtitles? I just got The Long Chase and was surprised how bare bones it was for ~$30.

The low priced editions are the exact same discs as the original releases.

Usually Toei's catalogue titles don't feature any extras other than photo gallery and trailer (plus teaser if available). The only exception I can think of are the Sukeban Deka movies which had making of documentaries.

Toei doesn't include any subtitles for Japanese language dialogue. If it's an old movie and there's a small amount of foreign language dialogue, then you'll probably get the original burnt in subs on the print.

Toei's dvds are heavily over-priced (especially TV shows) but then again, who else is releasing 4-6 classic Toei movies every month year after year? Besides, the sales for these movies can't be very good. I doubt they are making any profit.